Shrubbery in the Path of Car

The caretaker of a house in Montauk called East Hampton Town police on Saturday afternoon to say that a car had crashed on the property, resulting in the arrest of Sarah M. Broadwell, 32, of Montauk, who was charged with misdemeanor driving while intoxicated.
Ms. Broadwell drove a 2006 Toyota pickup truck into the driveway of the Soundview Avenue house, mowing down some shrubbery in the process, the report says. She then backed up, put the truck back in drive, and destroyed some other bushes.
According to the report, Ms. Broadwell displayed classic signs of intoxication — slurred speech, unsteady standing or walking, the smell of alcohol, and bleary eyes. She failed roadside sobriety tests, police said, and was taken to headquarters, where her blood-alcohol content was recorded as .19 by an Intoxilyzer 5000 breath test. Because the amount was more than twice the legal limit, the charge against her was raised to aggravated D.W.I.
When told by Justice Catherine Cahill of the .19 reading during her arraignment the next morning in town court, Ms. Broadwell asked the justice, “Can that be wrong?”
“I can’t discuss that,” Justice Cahill replied. “That is a conversation you can have with your attorney.” She set bail at $300.
Another car crash, this one early Monday morning in the woods near the intersection of Bow Oarsman’s and Tub Oarsman’s Roads in East Hampton, resulted in a second aggravated D.W.I. charge.
Gabriel G. Yupa-Buestan, 40, of East Hampton was arrested after an officer, responding to a report of a loud bang, came upon Mr. Yupa-Buestan and another person walking away from a badly damaged 2003 Ford sedan. Mr. Yupa-Buestan was reported to have been the driver. Back at the station house, his blood-alcohol test was recorded at .20.
On Monday evening, an officer driving the town police highway car, which is equipped with two license plate readers to detect cars being driven with suspended registration or insurance, flagged a 2007 Dodge that was headed south on North Main Street. As the officer pulled out to make the traffic stop, the driver, Heather R. Dunn-Kostura, 24, of East Hampton, turned onto Cedar Street, striking the curb as she did so.
She was arrested and taken to town police headquarters in Wainscott, where she called an attorney, Edward Burke Jr. After speaking with him she consented to take the breath test. However, the Intoxilyzer 5000 machine failed to pick up a reading, so Ms. Dunn-Kostura was taken to village police headquarters and given the test there instead. According to the report, the reading was .12. She then had a return trip to town headquarters, where she spent the night before being released without bail in the morning.
An Amagansett 18-year-old, whose identity was not released because of his age, was driving a 2011 Audi sedan on Old Montauk Highway in Montauk, a little east of the fork from Route 27, when he passed an officer who was parked, observing traffic. The youth was doing a reported 58 miles per hour where 30 m.p.h. is the limit.
He was pulled over a little before 1 a.m. on Oct. 16, and reportedly failed field sobriety tests before being arrested. He was released later that morning without bail, but with a future date in court.

About the Author

T.E. McMorrow began freelancing for The Star in 2009, before coming on staff, full time, at the end of 2011. He is a member of the Drama Desk in New York. His book, “Nutcracker in Harlem,” illustrated by James Ransome, is scheduled for publication in the fall of 2016 by HarperCollins children’s division.